2015 Santa Fe Symposium Papers

2015 - Understanding Injection Waxes

2015 - Understanding Injection Waxes

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Investment casting dates back to the fourth millennium B.C. and since that time, the most popular thermoplastic materials used in the process continue to be wax blends. In this paper, we present the results of an analysis of how injection waxes are made and the methods for attaining the best results from a wax blend. As a first step, we analyzed which components of wax blends are the most diffuse and studied the role of each of them. We focused on natural waxes, studying their natural variability. Subsequently, we analyzed which physical and chemical properties of wax blends are fundamental in obtaining good performance with different wax patterns such as filigree pieces, massive pieces and stone-embedded pieces, and tried to understand which analytic methods are best to monitor these properties.